Andersonville symbolizes POWs' view of war

May 13, 2003|By John Woestendiek, Tribune Newspapers: The Baltimore Sun.

ANDERSONVILLE, Ga. — The Georgia preacher flailed his arms -- not out of zeal, but self-defense.

It was Easter. The just-risen sun was burning through the morning mist. Birds chirped. And the mosquitoes, sensing easy prey, converged on the sparse crowd attending sunrise services at this former Civil War prison camp.

"We're going to 'a cappella' this one," Rev. John P. Drake said, waving bugs away as congregants, who had been quietly passing around a can of bug repellent, stood to sing.

Up from the grave He a-rose

With a mighty triumph o'er His foes;

He a-rose a victor from the dark do-main,

And he lives for-ever with His saints to reign.

He a-rose! He a-rose!

Hal-le-lu-jah! Christ a-rose!

Back in their folding chairs, seats wet with dew, the congregants listened as Drake, pastor of Andersonville Methodist Church, spoke about Easter -- the pain, suffering and torture of the crucifixion, followed by joyful rebirth. It was a message of faith and hope, particularly fitting on this, the first day home for the seven American ex-prisoners of war in Iraq.

But Drake made no mention of them. More surprising yet -- though he read from Ezekiel about the valley of dry bones, though he referred to Auschwitz -- he said nothing about the significance of the ground on which he stood. For lined up not far from the folding chairs -- and squeezed together even more closely -- were the tombstones of thousands of Union soldiers who, during the Civil War, died in Andersonville, a Confederate-run prison camp in which disease was rampant, cruelty was customary and escape was rare.

Death and brutality were common at all Civil War prison camps, Union-run camps included, but Andersonville, now home to the National Prisoner of War Museum, remains the most notorious.

Nearly 13,000 Union soldiers died here, not in battle, but as prisoners of war, all within the confines of a 26 1/2-acre Confederate gulag, all in a span of 14 months.

The camp's commander, Capt. Henry Wirz, was the only Civil War soldier convicted of war crimes. He was hanged in Washington on Nov. 10, 1865, but the debate over his place in history continues. While Wirz is most often portrayed as a cruel and wicked commander, there are those, including historians, who say that his trial was unfair and that the reputation history has given him is not entirely deserved.

His great-grandnephew, Heinrich Wirz, 67, a Swiss native who has visited Andersonville, says the commander was a victim of war's hysterical aftermath -- a man who did the best he could with the resources available only to be scapegoated, rushed through an unfair trial and wrongly hanged for events over which he had little control.

In 1908, in an attempt to clear Wirz's reputation, a monument proclaiming him a hero and a martyr was erected in the center of Andersonville.

For wars, final as they are, rarely come to tidy ends. After the conflict, criminals (generally those on the losing side) are sentenced, after the history (generally written by the winning side) is put down on paper, sorting the facts from the myths, the heroes from the villains, the right from the wrong, can go on for centuries.

A shameful saga

Even removing Wirz from the equation, though, Andersonville, as with prisoner-of-war camps from Bataan to Baghdad, remains a shameful saga -- one that, fully confronted, reflects a side of humanity most humans would prefer not to admit exists.

Today, thousands of tourists a year view shackles, cages and letters written home; view the flight suit, boots and arm cast worn by Army Maj. Rhonda Cornum, taken prisoner in the 1991 Persian Gulf war; and watch an introductory film, "Echoes of Captivity," narrated by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

They can stroll the undulating green hills that -- once surrounded by a 15-foot-high stockade made from hewed pine logs -- served as a muddy and overcrowded home to 45,000 Union soldiers during the Civil War.

And, in the cemetery, they can walk among the tiny white gravestones of Civil War prisoners, many of which are less than a finger's width apart, because, with scores of prisoners dying each day, coffins weren't used and prisoners were buried on their sides to save space.

The prison camp opened in February 1864, originally to hold 10,000 prisoners. Arriving at a rate of 400 a day, Union prisoners numbered 26,000 by the end of June, and would eventually reach 32,000. Because of a deteriorating Southern economy, poor transportation, failed efforts to exchange prisoners and the need to concentrate dwindling resources on its failing army, the Confederacy was unable to provide adequate housing, food, clothing or medical care for prisoners.

Deaths, at their peak, reached 127 a day, many of them from dysentery contracted from a branch of Sweetwater Creek that flowed through the middle of the tent-filled prison yard. It served as the only source of water, but also as a latrine.